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If you didn't plan for a fall garden, and maybe you've changed
00:00:03
your mind a little bit and you want to give it a go, you might
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be looking for something you can very quickly put into the ground
00:00:08
right now and grow directly from seed.
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Enter beets. They will happily germinate in
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almost any temperature of soil, and they greatly appreciate the
00:00:16
cooler days of fall when they're coming to maturity.
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They're not foolproof because there is a little effort needed
00:00:21
in terms of thinning in most cases, and they do need a nice
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loose soil to produce those beautiful round roots, but there
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is nothing that beats the flavor.
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Get it in the fall of a sweet roasted beet alongside other
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root vegetables, or my go to snack or addition to my salads,
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pickled beets and my new favorite beets roasted in the
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air fryer. Even my husband admits that
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those are good and he swears beets taste like dirt.
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So today on Just Grow Something, we're talking beets, how to grow
00:00:51
them, what type to grow for your area, and why does it seem that
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even when we carefully space our beet seeds out in the garden
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that we end up having to thin them anyway?
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So many seedlings. Let's dig in.
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Hey, I'm Karen, I started gardening in a small corner of
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my suburban backyard and now 18 years later, I've got a degree
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in horticulture and operate a 40 acre market farm.
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I believe there is power in food and that everyone should know
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how to grow at least a little bit of their own.
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On this podcast, I share evidence based techniques to
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help you plant, grow, harvest and store all your family's
00:01:25
favorites. Consider me your friend in the
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garden. So grab your garden journal and
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a cup of coffee and get ready to just grow something.
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So is anybody else kind of over it in the garden right now?
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Is it horrible of me to admit that when I have an almost full
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two months of market season left to go?
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It's the end of August, it's hot, it's super muggy here.
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The weeds have definitely gotten the better of me and honestly,
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in most of my garden areas I just don't care anymore.
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I'm OK to admit it and I get it. A lot of you are in the same
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position. We know the only areas right now
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that are properly weeded are where the fall garden has gone
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in because I don't need the competition from, you know, the
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weeds against the seedlings or any little sprouts that are
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coming up. My planter box direct planters
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are all nicely weeded because those are super easy to
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maintain. But the spaces in between them,
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yeah, they're threatening to overtake the edges of the
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planter at this point. So I'm just tired and it's a
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mess, and that's OK. I'm not too proud to admit that.
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You know, I mean, even the second round of our squashes are
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already succumbing to the squash bugs, and the cucumber beetles
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are just demolishing things. So we're at that point of the
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season where we're tired and frustrated and just over it.
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I love the summertime. I really do.
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I'm just tired. And I think a lot of you can
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relate. But fall is around the corner.
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And that's when I breathe a sigh of relief because not only does
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the weather give us a break, but so do the insects.
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And the weeds tend to slow to a crawl.
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So we're not, you know, fighting as much.
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So we're just trying to make it through until then.
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It also doesn't help that Starbucks and Target and like
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everybody else suddenly went into pumpkin spice panic mode
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like a month early this year. It's got me thinking about
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nothing but fall. So if we're thinking about fall,
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let's think about beets, right? Beets are the perfect veggie to
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plant for the fall garden, and now is the time to do it in most
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areas. So let's just do a quick primer
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on how to grow them. The scientific name for beets is
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Beta vulgaris. They are in the amaranth, the
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ACA family. This is the Amaranth family.
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They are in a subgroup that Chena Podoitiers.
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I love that word. Sounds like it should be a song.
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Chena podoitier. Anyway, that they also include
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things like spinach and Swiss Chard and sugar beets and
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mangles. So they used to be referred to
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as Chena Bodaisier, Chena pedecia, yes, Chena pedecia.
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But now they're under the amaranth, the Amaranthe AC.
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So anyway, you guys don't care about that.
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They're all in the goosefoot subfamily, just like spinach.
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So beats are grown for both its root and its tops, but they were
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originally domesticated in ancient Middle East specifically
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for just the greens. They weren't messing with the
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roots back then. They were grown by the ancient
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Egyptians and the Greeks, but by the time the Romans started
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messing around with them, they were growing them for their
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roots too. So ethnobotanically, both the
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roots and the greens have been used in traditional medicine for
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hundreds of years to treat all kinds of things like
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Constipation, gut and joint pain, dandruff, and bad blood,
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whatever that means. It sounds like a Taylor Swift
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song. That's why beets are currently
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being studied for possible health benefits in things that
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are related to blood. So your diabetes, high blood
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pressure, vascular function, that type of thing.
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And all those facts aside, beets are just really good for you.
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They're a good source of fiber and folate and manganese and
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potassium and vitamin C and iron.
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And I think it's the iron content that has LED researchers
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to look at the different blood disorders that beets can be
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helpful for. And it's the nitrates in beets
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that are helpful in reducing blood pressure.
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All very, very good things for you.
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But let's talk about the flavor. Yes, I can see where they get
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the reputation for tasting like dirt, especially if you've never
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had them prepared properly. Yeah, they're going to taste a
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little bit earthy, but if you roast them alongside like other
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root vegetables, it really brings out the natural sugars
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and the beets and they get sweet and almost caramel.
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I've been doing them in the air fryer all summer and they are
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super quick and delicious. But I am a sucker for a pickled
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beet. It's one of my favorite things
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to throw in a salad or on top of cottage cheese.
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So if you need a good beet pickle recipe, hit me up.
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I am happy to share mine. Let's talk about growing them.
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One thing that we need to think about when we're choosing a beet
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variety is the average number of days to maturity.
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Because depending on the conditions that you're growing
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in, you're going to look for one that is going to best fit those
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growing conditions. The average number of days can
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be anywhere from 55 to 70, some as long as 80, 90 days.
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So those early maturing varieties, you're looking at
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about 50 to 55 days. Red Ace and Early Wonder are two
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of those, your standard varieties, which is most of the
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commonly grown varieties like Detroit Dark Dread.
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These take about two months, so 60 to 65 days to reach maturity
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and then you have some late maturing ones, certain specialty
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varieties or the larger varieties that are really meant
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for like long term storage and your sugar beets.
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These all take 70 days, maybe even longer.
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These are all really good too for succession planting.
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So if you have a fairly long growing period either in the
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spring or in the fall or both, you can certainly choose a
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variety from each one of these categories.
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An early, a standard anelay, plant them all at the same time.
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And that way you have them maturing at different times
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through the season so that you kind of get a continuous harvest
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without getting backed up on beets.
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Now if you're like me and you do want sort of a bunch of them all
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at once at a certain point so you can pickle a bunch of them
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to get them put away for the season, then that's a different
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story. But if you want to do some
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succession plantings without having to plant every couple of
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weeks, choosing multiple varieties out of each of these
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categories is a great way to do it.
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Then you can either harvest them really early as little baby
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beats, or you can leave them in the ground for longer for larger
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roots. Just remember that the days to
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maturity are referring to the time from planting the seed to
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when the beet root is fully developed and ready to harvest.
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And the standard size is about, I want to say two inches is what
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they're considering fully grown. You can also harvest the greens
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while the beet is growing if you do it sparingly so that you're
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not going to disturb, you know, the, the growth of the root
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itself. Or there are varieties that are
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grown specifically for their greens, like they've been bred
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to produce little to no root at all, so that all you're getting
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is the greens. Of course, you could do what I
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do and just grow Swiss Chard instead.
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So I will grow the beets for their roots.
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And if I happen to get really great tops on them, fine, then
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I'll use those too. But for the tops, I actually
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just grow Swiss Chard. And for anybody who thinks that
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beets taste like dirt, Swiss Chard is a little bit more mild.
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So it does have that sort of earthy flavor, but not quite as
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strong as the beets. So there's a hot tip for you.
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So when we are deciding where to plant our beets in the garden,
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beets do prefer full sun, but they can also tolerate part
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shade. So this actually makes them a
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really good late summer planted crop because we can take
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advantage of this ability to grow in the part shade if it's
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still really hot where we are while we're planting for our
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fall garden. So if you have a taller summer
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crop that is already in place, you can plant your beets on one
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side of them to take advantage of the morning sun.
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But then when the the real heat of the day kicks in the
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afternoon, they'll be on the other side of those taller
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plants and they'll be able to shade those beets because they
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do like to come to maturity when it's a little bit cooler out.
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So you can take advantage of the fact that they do OK in part
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shade. The other thing that you could
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take advantage of is the fact that beets will do OK in low
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fertility soil. So they do prefer sort of a
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sandy loose, you know, soil that allows for those roots to expand
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with no problem. So lots of good organic matter,
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but they aren't super fussy about the nutrient level.
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They don't do well in heavy clay, I've experienced that
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myself. So you are going to have to
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amend accordingly if you do have heavy clay soils.
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Or just grow them in raised beds or planters.
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I've actually had success with both.
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I have stopped trying to amend my clay soil in place and
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instead I have begun to just layer layers of compost on top
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every single year and not turn it under.
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And that way I'm not even really having to deal with the clay at
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all. All that compost is breaking
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down into nice, you know, lovely soil when it's combined with
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what I'm using for mulch. And so I don't even dig it under
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anymore. So the beets have done really
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well on that. They've also done very well in
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my raised planters. So the soil structure is
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important because you know when that soil is nicely aerated,
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beets do really well, but they will, they will tolerate low
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fertility, but they won't tolerate as acidic soil.
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So if you've got aph that's less than six point O, like don't
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plant your beets there. Don't plant them near where your
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blueberries are now. The one thing they are fussy
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about with nutrients though is low boron.
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And you likely are not going to know if you have low boron soil
00:10:58
unless your beets start to show signs.
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So if you've got really poor root development, they're like
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severely stunted or they are really wonkily shaped for no
00:11:06
reason whatsoever, or you cut them open, there are dark brown
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patches in the inside. Or if you're trying to grow
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sugar beets and they're just not sweet, there's there's not a
00:11:15
real good sugar content to them. You very well may have low
00:11:19
boron, but you're not going to know for sure until you take
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that soil and you send it off for a university extension soil
00:11:25
test because home test kits are not going to check for boron.
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So in most places you're not going to have this problem.
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But if you see those signs and symptoms in your beats, then
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yeah, I would send it off. And all you're willing to do is
00:11:36
like add some Borax and that will that will take care of it.
00:11:41
Yes, Borax, the washing soda type stuff, you can just do a
00:11:44
light application of that and that'll generally help take care
00:11:46
of your boron deficiency. So when we are planting our
00:11:50
beets, we want them if you're doing it in the spring, about
00:11:53
two to four weeks before your last expected frost in the
00:11:56
spring. When we're doing them for a fall
00:11:58
harvest, it's going to be a late summer.
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Usually you know 6 to 8 weeks before that, that first frost in
00:12:04
the fall if you are in an area that has very mild summers.
00:12:09
So if your highs don't really get above 75 Fahrenheit during
00:12:13
the summertime, you can actually plant beets from spring all the
00:12:17
way through the summer and into the fall.
00:12:19
So just succession after succession of them for two to
00:12:22
three-week intervals. If you really like beets, If you
00:12:25
are in an area like mine though, where it does get hot in the
00:12:27
summertime, don't mess with the beets.
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They they might germinate but they're not going to grow very
00:12:32
well. So you really want to stick to
00:12:33
the sort of the spring and then the late summer for fall
00:12:35
plantings. You do want to direct sow these
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into the soil. You can transplant them
00:12:41
technically, but it really is not worth the effort getting
00:12:44
them started indoors. And when you disturb the roots
00:12:47
to pot them or to transplant them out into the garden, that
00:12:50
can actually cause those roots to get all wonky.
00:12:52
So just directly sow them in the ground and honestly, they are
00:12:58
going to germinate in a really wide range of temperatures, like
00:13:01
50°F all the way up to 85 Fahrenheit.
00:13:04
They will still, in fact they will still germinate if it's as
00:13:06
cool as 40 Fahrenheit or as high as 90 Fahrenheit.
00:13:10
It's just going to be a lot more slower to germinate at that
00:13:14
lower temperature and it's going to be a little spotty at the
00:13:16
higher temperature. But that tells you what a wide
00:13:19
range of temperatures we can sow them in, right?
00:13:22
So it's only going to take them about 5 to 8 days to pop up out
00:13:25
of the soil unless it's in those much colder soils and then it
00:13:29
can take as long as two weeks. You do want to space them.
00:13:32
You want to put about an 1/2 an inch deep.
00:13:34
These don't need to go really deeply into the soil because we
00:13:36
want them to be closer to the surface.
00:13:38
So those roots can sort of pop up as they start to grow and
00:13:42
then about an inch or two apart in your row.
00:13:46
If you're putting your rows about 12 to 18 inches apart, you
00:13:49
can also sort of broadcast see these and make sure that they
00:13:53
are about two inches apart when you do this because either way
00:13:56
you are going to have to thin these.
00:13:58
So usually I will do this in two stages.
00:14:01
The first is when they get about two inches tall, I will try to
00:14:04
go through with a pair of scissors at the soil line and
00:14:07
cut them off. And then I'll do it again to
00:14:09
where the final distance between them is about three to four
00:14:13
inches just to give the roots a good amount of space to develop.
00:14:17
And the reason I say you are going to have to thin these, it
00:14:20
doesn't matter how well you go through and space them out when
00:14:24
you're planting them, there are multiple seed embryos in every
00:14:28
single one of those seeds. So technically what you're
00:14:31
planting is like a seed ball and there are usually two to four
00:14:35
viable seeds in that little seed ball.
00:14:38
So you're going to have no choice but to go through and
00:14:41
thin them down to that three to four inch spacing because you're
00:14:44
going to have three to four plants sprouting out of the same
00:14:48
little hole. So it's going to take some
00:14:51
effort, I promise you, but it's OK.
00:14:53
I always use these thinnings. I just throw them into my salads
00:14:57
because they're, they're great little, you know, greens,
00:14:59
they're little micro greens and they're fantastic.
00:15:02
The only time that you won't have to do this will be if you
00:15:05
are planting a mono germ variety.
00:15:08
So a single embryo seed, one that I have planted before is
00:15:12
Moneta. It was from Johnny C.
00:15:14
They take about 70 to 80 days. I've had decent luck with them.
00:15:19
I have sometimes noticed that the germination will tend to be
00:15:22
spotty, and I don't know if that had to do with my growing
00:15:25
conditions or if it's the fact that the reason that beet seeds
00:15:30
are kind of bunched into that seed ball is because they
00:15:34
naturally don't have a fantastic germination and maybe that's why
00:15:37
Mother Nature designed it that way.
00:15:39
I don't know. But if you really want to avoid
00:15:42
having to worry about thinning them, then just find yourself a
00:15:44
mono germ variety and you can plant beets with companions.
00:15:50
So Bush beans, lettuce, radishes, any of your brassicas.
00:15:53
So broccoli, cabbage, all those guys.
00:15:55
My favorite though is to plant them with onions because onions
00:15:59
are really good for keeping away pests like flea beetles.
00:16:02
And the flea beetles always plague my beets eventually if
00:16:06
they're being grown by themselves.
00:16:07
So they just do, they just decimate them.
00:16:11
Onions and beets like the same soil texture, right?
00:16:14
So an onions will grow. They have a, those narrow
00:16:17
upright leaves. They don't cast very much shade
00:16:19
down. So that's allowing the beets to
00:16:20
receive plenty of sunlight. In the meantime, the beet greens
00:16:24
can provide some ground cover and some shade lower down.
00:16:27
That's going to help to suppress the weeds around the onions,
00:16:29
which the onions will absolutely appreciate.
00:16:31
The care requirements for onions and beets are about the same.
00:16:34
They both prefer well drained soil.
00:16:36
They like the consistent moisture.
00:16:38
They prefer the full sun makes them really easy to manage
00:16:41
together, but since the beets can tolerate that part shade, if
00:16:45
the onion top growth starts to get a little overzealous, the
00:16:48
shading isn't really going to affect the beets very much.
00:16:51
And in most instances your onions are going to be in place
00:16:55
for way longer than your beets are, so they're not going to
00:16:58
crowd each other out. You can pull the beets, harvest
00:17:00
the beets well before the onions start to get to their huge size.
00:17:04
The only caveat to this is that when we're growing onions, they
00:17:09
like to be side dressed with nitrogen several times during
00:17:12
their their top growth stage. But too much nitrogen for the
00:17:17
beets can actually lead them to get these really nice leafy
00:17:21
tops, but not a whole lot in the way of root development.
00:17:24
So just be aware of this if you are planning on growing your
00:17:27
beets with your onions, and I mentioned beets and onions like
00:17:31
the same things in terms of even moisture.
00:17:34
And so you are going to either water your beets fairly
00:17:38
consistently, but you don't want them to be overlogged.
00:17:41
You want the soil evenly moist. So they need, you know, whatever
00:17:44
our typical one inch of water per week is for the most of our
00:17:47
garden, either from rainfall or from irrigation is what your
00:17:50
beets are going to prefer. And of course, it's always best
00:17:53
to water them at the soil line because we don't want to wet the
00:17:56
foliage because that can lead to disease.
00:17:58
We'll talk about that here in a minute.
00:18:00
I also always of course recommend mulch, but I
00:18:03
understand that when we're growing root vegetables that
00:18:05
were directly sowing into the soil, it can be a little bit
00:18:08
difficult to mulch around those plants.
00:18:10
So what I do is I will mulch 2 to 3 inches across the entire
00:18:15
area where I plan to grow my beets, assuming that there's
00:18:18
already plants there, you know that I'm companion planting
00:18:20
with, I'll plant, I'll just push the the mulch around those.
00:18:24
But wherever I'm going to plant the beets, I will actually just
00:18:26
pull the mulch to the side down their little row and then go
00:18:31
ahead and plant the beets that way and then allow them the week
00:18:35
or so it takes for them to start to germinate.
00:18:38
Once I go through that first round of thinning them out by
00:18:42
clipping them off at the soil line, I'll start to use that
00:18:45
mulch a little bit closer to the plants.
00:18:47
You don't always, you don't want them right up against there
00:18:49
because that can cause them to rot, but just a little bit
00:18:51
closer. And then the second time I go
00:18:54
through and mulch, I will do that final kind of judging to
00:18:57
get them close to where those roots are going to be forming
00:19:00
because this is going to help retain that moisture.
00:19:02
So the it'll help keep that soil evenly moist.
00:19:05
It's also going to help suppress the weeds though, and it's going
00:19:08
to keep the soil cool because these are a cool weather crops.
00:19:11
So they do prefer it to be cooler.
00:19:13
And again, if we're planting for fall, that soil is already going
00:19:16
to be, you know, pretty warm. So we want to protect it as much
00:19:19
as possible. So any organic mulch, you know,
00:19:21
straw, grass clippings, leaves, whatever is going to do the
00:19:24
Chuck. Now, what about those pests?
00:19:26
OK, I talked about the flea beetles.
00:19:28
That's the one that we deal with the most.
00:19:31
But you may also experience leaf miners, leaf hoppers, web worm,
00:19:36
beet, army worms and aphids. So our first line of defense on
00:19:41
all of these is insect netting or row covers.
00:19:44
Usually it's row covers in the very early spring just because
00:19:47
that's what I have on hand because I'm covering everything.
00:19:50
And I will usually once it starts to warm up, because it
00:19:55
does start to get really hot under those row covers.
00:19:57
I, I don't want the beets to get too warm.
00:20:00
So I will take off the row covers and I will put on an
00:20:03
insect netting. Now if I'm growing them
00:20:06
alongside onions and the onions are starting to get real tall
00:20:09
and we don't want them pressing up against that insect netting,
00:20:12
I may have to take it off. Yes, the onions help to protect
00:20:17
against the flea beetles, but if I have aphids or something else
00:20:19
coming in here they might become an issue.
00:20:22
Leaf hoppers too sometimes are an issue as well.
00:20:24
So I have used First Saturday Lime to dust across the tops to
00:20:28
help keep things away. I have used Elm Dirt's strike to
00:20:32
keep them away. You know, a lot of the time if
00:20:36
you're not planning on eating the beet greens, you might not
00:20:41
even worry about some of these pests because once the beets
00:20:44
have gotten to a good size, the damage that these pests are
00:20:47
doing at that stage doesn't seem to affect the growth of the root
00:20:50
too much. And if you're not dusting or
00:20:52
spraying things, you are giving some of the natural predators a
00:20:56
chance to be able to come in and take care of them.
00:20:58
So most of the time, if it's aphids, then obviously you're
00:21:00
going to start to see, you know, green lace wings or your lady
00:21:04
beetles. So, but if you really do, you
00:21:06
know, need to get them knocked off of there or if you want to
00:21:08
eat those greens, then I recommend keeping them covered
00:21:11
or using something to keep the bugs off of the leaves because
00:21:14
those beet greens are mighty tasty to a lot of different
00:21:17
insects. And as far as the beet diseases,
00:21:20
we generally are trying to plant these during the cooler damper
00:21:24
times of the season, usually in the early spring.
00:21:27
If you're in an area where you get a lot of fall rain, that can
00:21:30
actually, you know, spread fungal diseases to your beets
00:21:33
just like any other garden plant.
00:21:35
So if you're having things like, you know, downy mildew, powdery
00:21:38
mildew, that sort of thing again for Saturday lime or of of milk
00:21:41
and water spray, anything you can do to change up that leaf pH
00:21:47
is going to help with that. Other sides like sulfur, neem
00:21:49
oil, these can also help. There is a disease also that is
00:21:52
particular to beets. It's called Circospora leaf
00:21:55
spot. It will just eat up the tops on
00:21:58
the really, really young plants. If you experienced this, you're
00:22:01
just want to make sure that you rotate your crops each season.
00:22:03
You don't want to plant anything that's in the same family that
00:22:06
those Chinna podoitiers. So no, no Chard, no spinach
00:22:10
before or after you plant beets, make sure that you are kind of
00:22:12
rotating around just kind of help keep that disease at Bay.
00:22:16
One other one that beets are susceptible two is another one
00:22:20
that a lot of plants like cucumbers or, and anything else
00:22:24
really is can be affected by and that is mosaic virus.
00:22:27
And the problem is that mosaic virus cannot be cured.
00:22:30
So once it's in your crop, it's there for the season.
00:22:33
So you just have to watch for the signs, which is pretty
00:22:36
distinctive. So it's going to be the leaves
00:22:39
they're going to be modeled with like yellow and white and these
00:22:41
light and dark green different spots like a mosaic.
00:22:45
That's where it gets the, the, the name from.
00:22:47
And they're going to be bumpy or blister, like the leaves are
00:22:51
going to kind of be crinkled. The plants are going to be
00:22:53
stunted. If you end up with mosaic virus,
00:22:56
first of all, you have to remove all of those infected plants or
00:22:58
it is just going to continue to spread to all of the other ones.
00:23:01
And you do not want to put these in your compost pile because
00:23:03
your home compost pile is not going to get hot enough to kill
00:23:07
off that virus. You're going to have to burn
00:23:08
them or throw them out with the garbage.
00:23:10
As much as I hate putting any kind of green matter, you know,
00:23:13
into the garbage, this is a case where you don't want them in
00:23:15
your compost. And then just make sure that you
00:23:17
are disinfecting all of your garden tools because it will
00:23:20
spread from that particular plant to every other plant
00:23:23
that's susceptible in your garden.
00:23:24
So and then the only other thing in beets too is if you've ever
00:23:28
had potato scab, then beets are also susceptible to that.
00:23:33
This I think is mostly prevented by just keeping your beets
00:23:37
evenly watered and that way they don't develop those hard spots.
00:23:40
We don't have much of a problem with that here.
00:23:42
So I just mulch the beets really well and they just do just fine.
00:23:45
So what about harvesting our beets?
00:23:47
You can really harvest your beets anytime.
00:23:50
Once they start to get bigger, whatever your preferred size of
00:23:53
beat is, then that's fine. I have seen people who like to
00:23:56
keep them as baby beets because they're easier to just pickle
00:24:00
whole at that point or they just like them small like that.
00:24:03
I mean, you know, once they get to the size of a golf ball,
00:24:05
that's a really good size. It's entirely up to you.
00:24:08
The smaller beets are going to be a little bit more tender.
00:24:10
The larger ones are definitely going to have a more robust
00:24:12
flavor. And if you look for those really
00:24:14
big storage beets, those are specifically bred to to hang on
00:24:19
and be firm for a really long time.
00:24:21
So just make sure that you know what it is that you're planting.
00:24:24
When you go to harvest them, you want to loosen the soil around
00:24:28
the beets. Either you can use a garden fork
00:24:30
or if your soil is nice and loose, you can just use your
00:24:31
fingers and get down underneath there and sort of lift them up
00:24:35
and loosen them up before you pull them up by the greens.
00:24:38
Always make sure that you're doing this first because
00:24:40
sometimes those beads can get a real deep taproot and they'll
00:24:43
have all these little fine roots coming off of them and it will
00:24:46
hold on to that soil incredibly well.
00:24:49
And you might pull on the top and all of a sudden the tops are
00:24:52
in your hand and the root is still down there in the soil.
00:24:54
So make sure that you are loosening up around and
00:24:56
underneath before you pull that top.
00:24:59
And again, once you've harvested them, don't forget you can do a
00:25:02
succession planting. You can do multiples of these.
00:25:04
So every few weeks, you know, or like I said, plant multiple
00:25:07
varieties with different maturity dates all at the same
00:25:10
time. And that way there's kind of
00:25:11
continuing to come on when you are ready to store them.
00:25:16
They will do really well for a couple of weeks in the
00:25:18
refrigerator if you remove the greens.
00:25:20
The greens, if you leave them on, are going to continue to
00:25:23
draw moisture out of those roots into the atmosphere.
00:25:26
And that's going to cause them to go soft, just like with our
00:25:28
carrots. So make sure that you're cutting
00:25:30
the tops off of them before you put them in the refrigerator.
00:25:34
If you want them to store longer than that, you can do them in a
00:25:37
sort of root cellar situation. So if you have some place that's
00:25:39
cool and dark very consistently, then you can store them that
00:25:43
way. I prefer to pickle mine or you
00:25:46
can just can them or you can even freeze them for long term
00:25:49
storage. So one other thing to note about
00:25:55
beets, if you are a seed saver, we're going to talk about saving
00:25:59
seeds here in a couple of weeks, but just know that beets are
00:26:02
biennials. So if you want to save the
00:26:05
seeds, you are going to have to allow some of those roots to
00:26:08
overwinter and then leaf out and produce seeds in the second
00:26:12
year. Now, if you are someplace with
00:26:14
fairly mild winters, this likely isn't going to be too much of a
00:26:17
problem for you. But if you are someplace where
00:26:20
the, you know, soil freezes solidly during the winter time
00:26:24
or it gets bitterly cold, you might have to put down several
00:26:27
layers of really thick mulch to get them through the winter.
00:26:30
Maybe even cover with some row covers.
00:26:33
You never know. It's worth a try.
00:26:34
If you decide that you want to collect those seeds, they're
00:26:38
fairly easy to collect. They're just going to come up on
00:26:40
a stock and then once that flowers and produces the seed,
00:26:43
you let it naturally dry sort of on that stock and then just
00:26:46
store them in a cool, dry place for a future planting.
00:26:49
So not only are beets really good for us, they can also make
00:26:53
good use of spots in our garden that might be less than ideal
00:26:58
for other crops, especially in the fall.
00:27:00
They are one of those crops that I term as a split succession
00:27:05
crop, one that takes around 60 days to get to maturity.
00:27:08
So you can plant it once in the spring and then you can skip the
00:27:11
summer and then you can plant again on in the late summer for
00:27:14
fall. And of course, beets are also
00:27:16
good for interplanting among other crops to make the most out
00:27:19
of your space. So if you can get past the taste
00:27:21
of the dirt, I'm kidding, They really are really good.
00:27:25
I encourage you to give Beats a try in your garden for the fall,
00:27:29
and then maybe you'll like them so much that you'll plant them
00:27:31
again in the spring. Until next time, my gardening
00:27:34
friends, keep on cultivating that dream garden, and we'll
00:27:36
talk again soon. Thanks for listening to another
00:27:38
episode of the Just Grow Something podcast.
00:27:41
For more information about today's topic and to find all
00:27:43
the ways you can get in touch with me or support the show, go
00:27:46
to justgrowsomethingpodcast.com. Until next time, my gardening
00:27:50
friends, keep learning and keep growing.